Codename: ARME
by Draconian Arsonist
Summary: Confusion, abandonment, betrayal. They all have different reasons for being alone, but it's just this that brings them all together. Rated T for now, might be changed to M depending on where I take the story. I'm also making this an Adventure story for now, but once again, depending on where I take the story, it might change.


_Author's Note: __**Scroll past the italicized text to read the first chapter.**_ _I have a lot to explain...some of it my not be necessary, but I'm explaining it anyway._

_This fanfiction is a beginning for me in more ways than one. It's my second fanfic to date, my first fanfic that (most likely) won't be a one shot, my first attempt in deeply developing the characters, and my first story centred around more than one character's POV (not featured in this chapter). So...bear with me. Reviews are highly appreciated, especially from those with high amounts of experience in writing._

_I have several reasons for creating this fanfic, some of which some people might be able to relate to. _

_A: I want to try creating a longer and more thorough project, as I feel it will improve my writing skills for the future._

_B: I killed three out of four members of Team ARME in my last fanfic...it sort of makes me want to highlight them better in this one._

_C: I really like the ideas of what kind of teamwork could go on between the members of Team ARME, both fighting-wise and with problem solving._

_D: I fucking love all of these characters. U MAD?_

_If this fanfic receives decent reception, I'll probably make another chapter very soon, and another fanfic entirely within due time. Around my fifth or sixth fanfic, I'll most likely tackle the crossover idea. Hope you guys enjoy this one!_

_Fair amount of warnings: This most likely isn't going to be a fanfic with a lot of romance. For sure, there won't be any Yuri pairings. Sorry, but I'm not going to be aiming for a high level of romance between any pair yet. Also, violence warning. Knowing myself and my twisted brain, this story might end up being boosted to an M rating after future chapters are released. You have been warned._

_Now, let's start the actual fanfic!_

Ruby Rose felt herself slowly waking up after what seemed like quite a long sleep. She sat up and yawned as she felt beams of sunlight shine through her closed eyelids. It was morning, time to start a new day. She opened her eyes, ready to jump out of her bed and alert the rest of her teammates, when she stopped. _"Wait a minute..."_, Ruby thought. _"This isn't my room..." _Then all of a sudden, reality struck her, and the world around her came back into focus. She _had_ fallen asleep. In Professor Port's class. Again.

She noticed Yang and Blake further down the classroom desk, both desperately trying to suppress smiles and laughter. Her partner sitting next to her, however, seemed much less amused.

"You dolt!", Weiss Schnee whispered to Ruby in an angry and scolding tone. "The Professor could've noticed. You almost got us into trouble!"

Ruby gave the fencer a slight smirk, quick to cover up her slight feelings of guilt and shame. "Professor Port never notices anything.", Ruby whispered back. Surely enough, the professor was too busy telling the class all about his latest tale to notice anything amiss. "You're being overdramatic.", Ruby stated.

Weiss fumed at this statement. "Well, _bravo_ to the great leader who mistook 'cautious' for 'overdramatic'!", she said a bit too loudly.

"Ah, Ms, Schnee!", Professor Port boomed from the front of the room. "Is there something you would like to add?"

Caught off guard, Weiss found herself at a complete loss for words, something that didn't happen too often with the Ice Queen. "Umm...I...", she mumbled.

The professor lowered his head. "Oh, dear.", he said. "I'll have ask you to refrain from disrupting your classmates any further Ms. Schnee, as this is an incredibly important lesson."

He then looked away and continued to give the class his completely pointless lecture, oblivious to the other three members of Team RWBY, burying their faces in their hands and arms, desperately trying to muffle any sounds of laughter.

Weiss almost seemed to have steam pouring from her ears. She looked furiously at Ruby, but said nothing, and instead tried focusing on taking notes. Unfortunately for her, she brought her pen down to her sheet of paper with such intensity that the tip snapped off, ink spilling over the fresh notes she had written down.

Yang couldn't help it. She let out a large series of chuckles that she had failed to stifle, just loud enough for the professor to hear. The old professor, however, looked towards Yang and grinned.

"Ah, yes. It was a very humorous sight!", the professor boomed. "I had rendered the Death Stalker paralyzed everywhere except around it's pincers, so it would just occasionally try to snip at our feet. Like a baby grabbing at candy..."

Port chuckled to himself a bit and then looked up at the clock, frowning slightly. "Ah, look at the time! I'm afraid I've kept you here too long. Off you go, children!"

Everyone emptied out of the classroom, Team RWBY being one of the first teams out of the door. The laughs that everyone but the Ice Queen had been holding in were released. Ruby let out her high pitched squeal of a laugh, Blake let out a series of small chuckles, and Yang held her head and let out a bellow of a a laugh that drew several stares from others.

Weiss grew a shade of scarlet that actually made Ruby a bit jealous. "It's not funny!", she stated angrily. "Just because you three are so lucky..."

Yang looked up at Weiss with a big smile. "Not really...you just overreact too much."

"Don't talk to me about overreacting!", Weiss said with crossed arms. "You were pretty much on the verge of dying back in class..."

Blake eyed Weiss with interest. "Admittedly...that was pretty funny, Weiss."

Ruby chuckled some more. "You should be the new class clown!"

Weiss tried keeping her disapproving look, but the laughter of her teammates caused her to crack a smile. "My notes are still ruined, you know..."

"I have some notes if you need them, Weiss.", came a voice from behind them.

Weiss turned around, suddenly, along with the rest of Team RWBY, to find Pyhrra Nikos staring at them with a sheet of fresh notes in her one hand, Jaune Arc and Lie Ren following close behind.

Yang waved at the three members of Team JNPR as Weiss graciously accepted the notes. "Hey, guys. Where's Nora...?"

Jaune looked over at Yang, a bit flustered. "She ran off as soon as the professor dismissed us...knocked me over while she was at it, too."

"They're serving tater tots in the cafeteria today.", Ren said flatly.

"Oh...that explains it."

Pyhrra looked over at Ruby with a concerned look on her face. "I also have some coffee mix, if you need any..."

A passing member of Team CFVY looked over. "You mentioned us...?"

Pyhrra looked over, startled. "No, Fox. Sorry for the miscommunication."

Ruby looked down as Fox left. "I'm fine, Pyhrra...I just spent last night studying, that's all. Thanks, though."

"You should spend time actually studying in class instead of tiring yourself out overnight.", Weiss said over to Ruby.

Pyhrra nodded in agreement. "A lack of sleep can do terrible things to people. Maybe you should take a small nap now?"

Ruby wanted to argue, but her body said something different. She had begun to grow bags underneath her eyes, and she was constantly slumping. Lately, she was having trouble with staying awake, no matter where she was. Her eyes would constantly flutter from shut to open, and she was often found stifling a yawn. It was a lot like how Blake had been during their recent investigation on the White Fang's actions, before they had convinced her to take it a bit easy.

She reluctantly nodded. "Fine...be sure to wake me up in time for class, though."

"I'll most likely be in the dorm after lunch.", Blake stated. "I'll awake you before class starts."

Ruby nodded again. "Thanks, Blake."

With that, Ruby waved to all of her friends, receiving a bone-crushing hug from Yang, and strode towards the Team RWBY dorm, staggering a bit along her way. She eventually reached the dorms and opened her door, welcoming herself to her room.

Ruby clambered up to her top bunk and quickly pulled her blankets over herself, not bothering to put on any pyjamas. Her beloved scythe, Crescent Rose, lay to her right on the bed. She felt the exhaustion she had been hiding for the past week or so take over, and she very quickly slumped and fell asleep.

The dream that played out in Ruby's mind that afternoon was unlike any she had ever had. She found herself in front of Beacon Academy, standing at the same place where she had first met Weiss, Blake, and in terms of formal greetings, Jaune.

The first thing that Ruby noticed was that she was alone. She looked around for any sign of life, but she couldn't see anybody. In fact, she couldn't see herself. As she looked down, she was shocked to see that she had no feet. She tried moving her hand in front of her face, but it wasn't there either.

With her body being gone, she also realized that all senses of weight were gone. Ruby was literally weightless. She looked around again and decided to try jumping. She immediately felt herself rise, much higher than anyone could've jumped normally. She smiled to herself. _"So...I can fly."_

She decided to fly higher, high enough that she could see the entire Beacon campus. She giggled to herself and flew further, away from Beacon, to places she had never been before. This feeling was unnatural, it gave an insane sense of freedom. It wasn't like normal flying in a dream...it was more like she was the wind itself.

Ruby paid no attention to where she was going, she just flew as far as she could go, completely loving it the entire way through. She sailed across the blue sky, passing above all of the fluffy white clouds and reaching even higher. _"I can go anywhere I want..._", she thought. _"I'm free...free to do anything!"_

Just as Ruby was hitting the peak of her excitement, she felt herself begin to descend, the weight beginning to return to her body. _"No. Stop! Slow down!" _No matter what Ruby thought, she couldn't slow her fall. In fact, it only sped up.

The feeling of freedom and joy had almost immediately been replaced with shock and fear. Ruby could only watch as the rocky ground came closer and closer. The normally pale white clouds were now stormy grey, the bright blue sky was now pitch-black. She found herself unable to do anything, she couldn't even scream, as she fell faster by the second. She just managed to close her eyes before she hit the ground. A hard impact...and everything faded.

Ruby awoke in a cold sweat, still feeling like she was falling. Slowly, she eased her breathing, trying to calm down. "It was only a nightmare...", she said aloud. Speaking seemed to calm her down more, and she managed to gather her surroundings.

Immediately, Ruby's sense of fear was renewed. It was nighttime. "Oh, no!", she said, sitting up. "I missed class!" She looked to her left, expecting to see Blake and Yang sleeping...but all she saw was darkness.

Ruby checked all around her, and realized, once again, that she wasn't in her dorm. Except this time...she had no clue has to where she was. Darkness enveloped the area, so she couldn't make out a rough clue as to where she might be.

She moved her hands across the cold floor, and warmed up slightly when she felt one of them find Crescent Rose. Ruby grabbed her weapon and tried standing up, when suddenly a feeling of nausea washed over her. She staggered and felt herself fall back down on her hands and knees. With no idea of what had happened, Ruby retched, spewing vomit where her scythe had been just one minute ago.

She kneeled there for several minutes, regathering herself. The nausea faded slowly, and she began trying to wrap her mind around what was going on. _"Okay...first things first."_, Ruby thought. _"You don't really know where you are at the moment. You're alone...or at least I think you're alone. You went to sleep in your dorm during lunch, and now..."_

Ruby thought for a while, and came up with no decent ideas as to why she was where she was. She felt the nausea pass away and decided to try standing up again. It was much harder this time, as the vomiting had brought forth weakness all throughout Ruby's body. She grit her teeth, using Crescent Rose as a stand, and pulled herself up, stumbling a bit.

"Okay, then.", Ruby said aloud, glad to see that she could still use her voice. "Next matter of business...finding out where we are."

Ruby looked around, feeling across the walls for a light switch of sorts. After a minute of searching, she found a metal door, like those used for warehouses and such. She felt around the bottom and pulled up on the handle. To Ruby's surprise, the metal slid up, revealing the night sky and illuminating what was indeed an abandoned warehouse.

Ruby squinted slightly as the moonlight hit her, but the shock quickly faded. She looked behind her at the stockpiles of crates and shipping containers, and a small feeling of relief hit her. At least she knew where she was now.

She tried to think some more on her situation. Had the White Fang kidnapped her? It would certainly explain why she was in a warehouse. But upon closer inspection, Ruby found no signs of life anywhere, and none of the containers seemed to contain dust. Interesting...

Or maybe it was a prank...maybe her friends had moved her to a nearby warehouse to fool with her. That made sense...except for the fact that Ruby probably would've woken up before it got too dark. She also knew that her friends wouldn't be so cruel as to cause her to throw up...another mystery on Ruby's predicament that was still unsolved.

"Yang?", she called out, hoping for some sort of response. "Weiss? Blake? Anybody? Please...?"

Nothing. She was all alone.

Ruby moved forward, still calling out, growing panicky. Not being able to see very well, she gasped as her foot got caught on something unknown. She lost her footing, and fell down hard, on her arm.

She yelped as she hit the ground. It didn't hurt too much, but the fall had scared her. She shuddered from the feeling of her new sprain and the cold atmosphere. She curled up into a ball, feeling frightened.

She tried calling out again. "Please...anyone? I...I need some help!"

No response.

Ruby grew angrier and more frightened. "W-what the hell is happening?!"

Still no response.

She sobbed audibly and curled up more, bringing her knees to her face. She was confused, freezing, and all alone. How far was she from Beacon...from her friends? Would she ever make it back...?

_"Stop it."_, Ruby chided to herself. _"Just calm down...count to ten."_

She did just that, inhaling deeply on every odd number, and exhaling on every even. At ten, she opened her eyes, feeling slightly more relaxed.

Ruby looked behind her at the small stack of wood she had tripped over. She sighed and looked back ahead, sitting up. She got herself back on her feet, using Crescent Rose as a stand like last time.

"I need to get out of here.", Ruby decided as she steadied herself. "That's the first step...maybe we're not too far from Beacon after all."

She turned to the door and began striding towards it before stopping in her tracks. In the shadow of the doorway stood a figure of a man. Ruby would've felt relieved at seeing someone else, except for the fact that this man did not look very friendly.

He was very tall, easily towering over Ruby. He seemed to be dressed in dark colours, but other than that, Ruby could see no distinguishing features from the distance she was from him. However, he stood there menacingly, lithe like a black panther, and it was this that scared Ruby. It seemed like this man was staring directly at her, as if she was his next target.

"W-who are you?", Ruby managed to get out.

The man simply shifted his left foot, straightening himself. There seemed to be a faint glow emitting from around his eye level, like a red visor. Ruby heard a low, powerful chuckle from the man's end, as if he knew that everything was over.

_So...I left it at a slight cliffhanger._

_"What the fuck, Draco? This is the pilot!"_

_I know...sorry. I think it'll leave you guys wanting more. Most of you probably already know who the mysterious figure is (hell, some of you have probably pretty much figured out all of the main characters), but please keep information on this to yourselves until the later chapters._

_As previously stated, ANY favourites, follows, and reviews will be highly appreciated. I hope you guys will enjoy the rest of the story! DA signing off._

_(Damn, I like that acronym. It makes me feel like I'd be a key member to Dumbledore's Army...)_


End file.
